Child Abuse Awareness Month April 2019

The month of April was marked
as Child Abuse Awareness month in the United States, it has
been an annual observance since 1983, and is now
internationally recognised.

The Sensible Sentencing Group
Trust (SSGT) made the decision to acknowledge child abuse
awareness and prevention month in New Zealand this
year.

SSGT Victim Advocate Jayne Walker said “We felt
that there had been an enormous amount of focus on the
Christchurch Mosque shootings by the New Zealand Government
and gun laws were changed very swiftly, yet there has been
no acknowledgment of what this month represents, and we do
not want our precious children to be forgotten.”

The
SSGT has been honouring the children who have been the
victims of horrendous abuse and have written about the heart
wrenching loss of their lives to unbelievable violence on
their Facebook page “Stand UP NZ”. Thousands of people
have responded to these posts.

Walker says “Obviously we
have not mentioned the horrific massacre that occurred in
two Christchurch Mosques last month. We know it was an
unbelievably tragic loss of life and have no intention of
comparing any tragedy. Our hearts go out to all the
victims.”

However other members of the public have made
reference to the Governments response to the Mosque
shootings with one of the post’s saying “No disrespect,
or taking anything away from what happened in CHCH but
imagine the childrens lives that could have been saved by
now if there was the same resolve to stamp out child abuse
as there has been to stamp out terrorism.” This post alone
saw more than a thousand ‘likes’ and a very large number
of the replies to that post were in agreement.

Another
person who posted a comment suggested a huge monument be
erected outside of parliament, with all of the names of the
wee children who had lost their lives to abuse etched on it.
One Facebook user said “I have been reading all the posts
on Stand UP NZ this week and it’s been making me angry.
How can we change a gun law in a week but yet our Justice
System hasn’t changed a bit and New Zealand children have
to suffer for it. It’s pitiful and it makes me
sick.”

Jayne Walker went on to say “Our hearts are
truly warmed with the unbelievable amount of support we have
precipitated. We are overwhelmed.”

“The SSGT has set
up an email address to cope with the number of messages and
cries for help it has been receiving. We intend to campaign
beyond April’s child abuse awareness month and needed a
place for people to share their ideas. We have had some
really sad messages from people crying out for help as well,
and we will be supporting and working with these people,
assisting however we can.”

New Zealand has one of the
worst records of Child Abuse in the developed world. Every
five weeks a child loses their little life to violence.
Walker said “There has to be change, we have to stamp out
child abuse. We no longer accept that our Government can’t
make change, we know that they can. We cannot stand silently
any longer waiting for them to wake up!”

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